Advising at WashU is an important part of students’ preparation for registration for upcoming terms. 

Advisors are expected to be familiar with registration tools and policies for their respective programs.  The steps and resources listed here are intended to be helpful starting points for university-wide tools; schools typically provide additional guidance for advisors based on their programs’ conventions and course offerings.

Planning for Registration

Review the planning for registration page on the Student Sunrise website . Learn about the different tools in Workday to help you prepare. These include Saved Schedules, Academic Plans, and our new course numbering rubric.

Meet with Advisees

Many programs require that, before registering for an upcoming semester, students meet with advisors and gain approval of their proposed course selections.

  • Advisors should follow their school’s practice for scheduling advising meetings with students.  
  • Advisor approval of students’ proposed registration choices is enforced in Workday with registration holds.  Students may have faculty advisors and/or academic advisors, depending on the nature of their programs, and may have multiple related holds as a result. 
  • Authorize registration by removing holds. Students with holds on their registration will not have access to register until the initiating offices have released the holds. Those who attempt to register before the holds have been released will receive a message indication which offices have placed holds on their registration.
  • Students pursuing several programs of study may have multiple advisors. Faculty advisor holds may only be removed by the advisor for their primary program of study. For example: 

Undergraduate Carson has the following programs declared and program-specific advisors assigned:

BA Major in Sociology – Faculty Advisor

Second Major in Accounting – Faculty Advisor

Minor in Art – Faculty Advisor

As an A&S student, Carson also has a Four-year Advisor (FYA) called an “Academic Advisor” in Workday. For registration, there will be one Faculty Advisor registration hold and one Academic Advisor registration hold.

The Faculty Advisor hold should only be removed by the Sociology faculty advisor, since that is Carson’s primary program of study. Carson may have registration prep meetings with the accounting and art advisors, but they must not remove the Faculty Advisor hold. The Academic Advisor hold will be removed by the Four-year Advisor.

Prior to their registration, students must check for holds and how to resolve them in Workday.

Registration Hold Types

Holds on a student’s record prevents the completion of certain activities, such as registration. Visit the Registration Holds page for a guide which includes the definitions of different types of holds, and how to resolved them.